A combination of natural and artificial rainfall helped alleviate the drought in Guangdong Province over the weekend.

A cold air mass from North China arrived in Guangdong on Friday night, pushing the temperature across the province down by about 10 C.

The cold weather brought much-needed rains to the province, which has been suffering from a severe drought, the Guangzhou weather bureau told China Daily yesterday.

Shaoguan and Qingyuan, two cities in northern Guangdong, received heavy rains. Cities to the west of Guangdong, including Zhaoqing, Yunfu, Heyuan, Yangjiang and Jiangmen, had modest rains or drizzles.

As the natural rains fell, weather authorities in Shaoguan, Zhaoqing and Yunfu decided to hedge their bets by inducing artificial precipitation, bringing more water to their parched cities. Zhaoqing alone exploded 24 artificial precipitation rockets, while Shaoguan shot off about a dozen.

The average rainfall (including natural and artificial rainfalls) for the whole province last weekend was about 13.7 mm, representing 250 million cu m of rainwater, the bureau said.

Luokeng county in Shaoguan got the biggest dousing with 118 mm.

The cold air mass and rainfall will continue moving southward in the coming days.

"This means the drought will be further alleviated," Huang Zhong, the chief weather forecaster at the Guangzhou weather bureau, said.

But Huang said the rainy conditions will not last long, and that the drought will probably emerge again.

The provincial weather bureau has forecast that most cities in the province can expect occasional clouds today and tomorrow. Some cities in southern and eastern Guangdong, such as Zhuhai, Huizhou and Shanwei, will have drizzles.

The temperature in northern Guangdong will be between 7 C and 10 C. Elsewhere, the temperature will be between 11 C and 14 C. The relative humidity across the province is above 60 percent.

"This is probably the driest winter in Guangdong since 2003," Li Jianji, director of the Guangdong Astronomy Society, told China Daily.

The amount of rainfall from November 1 to December 20 was about 60 percent of what fell during the same period last year. Most cities have received less than 20 mm of rain. Leizhou city in western Guangdong did not have a single rainfall during the period, he said.

The drought has seriously affected the agricultural industry. Because of the drought, southern coastal cities such as Zhuhai have experienced severe saltwater tides.

(China Daily December 25, 2007)